Day by Day with Bhagavan

A visitor asked, “I have been visiting various shrines in a pilgrimage, and worshipping various images. What exactly is God’s true form?”

Bhagavan: The only thing to know is that there is an entity who is in all these forms, but who is not these forms. We see the One in the many. We see the One as many, the Formless in the forms.

In the afternoon, T.P.R. asked Bhagavan where the ஊர்ந்து குடிச்சான்‌ சுனை (ūrntu kuṭiccāṉ cuṉai – the name of a spring) is on the Hill and Bhagavan described the locality and said it was first shown to him by a woodcutter. Bhagavan continued, “In those days I used to go all by myself. For answering calls of nature I used to stroll along, taking no water with me, but going wherever water may be available. It was on one such occasion, on one morning, that I came across the banyan tree of which I have spoken often.

“As I was walking in the bed of a hill-stream, I saw a big banyan tree on a boulder, with big leaves, and crossing the stream I wanted to get to the other bund and view from there this big tree. When I accidentally put my left foot near a bush on the way to the other bank, the hornets clustered round my left leg up to the knee and went on stinging. They never did anything to my right leg. I left the left leg there for some time, so that the hornets could inflict full punishment on the leg which had encroached on their domain. After a time, the hornets withdrew and I walked on. The leg got swollen very much and I walked with difficulty and reached ‘Ezhu Sunai’ (Seven Springs) about 2 a.m., and Jadaswami, who was camping there then, gave me some buttermilk mixed with jaggery which was all that he could provide by way of food. This is what actually happened. But afterwards, people have gone and written that I had purposely set out to explore and find out the banyan tree described in the purana as the one on the northern peak of the Hill, where Arunachala^[1] is said to be residing as a siddha. I never had any such idea. When I saw for the first time a remarkable banyan tree on a huge and precipitous boulder, I was prompted by curiosity to have a look at it. Meanwhile, the hornets stung me and I forgot all about the tree.”

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